Here is my idea for a system to make griefing almost non-existant / highly ineffective. First, however, allow me to explain my experiences moderating. If you just want to learn about the system, skip the section inside the wall of dashes.
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I decided to start running my own server after (surprise!) having some beautiful trees that I had made destroyed immediately after finishing them. My idea for a server, borrowing from the tradition of SA D&D was to try running it with an iron fist, and moderating in a very active sense. I would like to explain my system of moderating, because I, and the players in my server, had great experiences with almost no griefing (but it was a lot of work!).
I started by setting the spawn point away from all projects, in a place that was open and without any pretty trees. I then built a "spawn platform". The platform was just a stone square with the spawn point placed on it. The reason I did this was to provide some bait for any spastic griefers that would log in and just start deleting. I kept my spawn point close to the platform, and whenever anyone logged in I would immediately return to the platform and explain to them my system of rules, which were as follows. 1) No randomly deleting the terrain. You can delete the terrain for the purpose of a project, but these worlds the software creates are pretty, and we don't want to mar them for no good reason. 2) In our server it was a rule that you had to ask for permission before helping someone with one of their projects. 3) In our server it was a rule that you had to ask for permission from ALL THE OTHER PLAYERS in our (admittedly small) server before starting a project. This kept new players from flooding other players creations, and gave the players the ability to veto dumb ideas like a big grey cube, or an electric phallus. lol. 4) Players who built sand towers to see into the distance, had to remove them to reduce clutter. 5) Any player that deleted anothers work would be banned immediately upon being reported. I of course gave more weight to the opinion of players who had been in the server building for a long time. Now, you may think that this system of banning immediately would be abused, but it never was.
Now, before I would start explaining all these rules I would tell the new player basically "welcome! Please stay on the platform until I explain the rules to you" and this was good because it weeded out a lot of spastic and disrespectful players. On this server, I was extremely Ban-Happy. I would ip ban (new) players for deleting the ground around them (after 1 warning), Being disrespectful while I explained the rules, or running off. I banned a lot of people! But because I was closely watching every new person that entered the server, I could, at the end of my rules rant explain to my new players that on this server they could really invest themselves because their creations had a very low chance of being deleted, and the results were amazing!
The disadvantage of this system, is that it ate ALL my time for about 6 hours whenever I opened a server. Once i left the keyboard for literally 5 minutes, and a griefer logged in and flooded a players beautiful subway he was building, but that was our only notable instance of real griefing. The advantage is that we really were able to basically eliminate griefing, and also because the other players had to approve the new projects we ended up with a beautiful cohesive world with a theme, that was not too cluttered and retained the natural beauty of the randomly generated worlds.
I just went through all the trouble of explaining this, for the following reason. I don't know if you guys think the server I just described is the sort of server you would like to play on. It was a little bit fascist, but I am telling you, the players who stayed on and built things over the course of hours really loved it, and appreciated what I was doing. I would love to see some more people adopt a similar system (with whatever amount of strictness you desire) and starting some similar servers where players can feel safe creating.
Now my idea for a system to combat griefing (other than the above wall of text (Summary:Moderate like a mofo) is as follows. I don't know if it's very original, but I haven't heard of anything like it yet. My apologies if someone has suggested it before. It is as follows.
Assign all blocks an ID for whatever player built them. (randomly generated blocks have a separate ID)
Make the actions of building and deleting contingent upon mod approval.
When new players enter the server they have NO permissions. (unless the server is set to allow them)
The mod first gives the permission to add blocks. This only allows blockspam griefing, which is only annoying.
The mod can then add new permissions to each player dependant upon how long they have been in the server or whatever criteria they desire.
the ladder would basically go like this: Add blocks, Delete randomly generated blocks, then if needed for a project or collaboration or to undo griefing, Delete blocks made by (playerID).
A few things - All this could also be run through a voting system. It would be good to be able to set ID specific permissions so that if two people wanted to work together on a project, they could delete each others blocks. Also, it would be cool to set your own permissions to only delete blocks made by PlayerID. this would make it easy to delete a griefers blockspam.
Finally, it would be good if the moderator could see in a separate window or something the actions of all players. something like onecircles +S(stone) 144,286 etc. and if there were mod powers to undo all changes made by a specific player or delete all blocks made by a specific player.
That is all, tell me what you guys think! thanks for listening! :smile.gif:
All good ideas, but personally, some people just don't like being analyzed and tested before being given rights.
Putting an ID on the block is best. Players can only delete their own blocks and blocks made by nature.
Yes, I know how you feel, and I agree. It's really a matter of the lesser of two evils. It is ideal to be able to jump in and play, and there will always be servers where that is possible, but for people who are desperate to be free of griefing, the method of moderating that I mentioned might be worth it.
Here is my idea for a system to make griefing almost non-existant / highly ineffective. First, however, allow me to explain my experiences moderating. If you just want to learn about the system, skip the section inside the wall of dashes.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I decided to start running my own server after (surprise!) having some beautiful trees that I had made destroyed immediately after finishing them. My idea for a server, borrowing from the tradition of SA D&D was to try running it with an iron fist, and moderating in a very active sense. I would like to explain my system of moderating, because I, and the players in my server, had great experiences with almost no griefing (but it was a lot of work!).
I started by setting the spawn point away from all projects, in a place that was open and without any pretty trees. I then built a "spawn platform". The platform was just a stone square with the spawn point placed on it. The reason I did this was to provide some bait for any spastic griefers that would log in and just start deleting. I kept my spawn point close to the platform, and whenever anyone logged in I would immediately return to the platform and explain to them my system of rules, which were as follows. 1) No randomly deleting the terrain. You can delete the terrain for the purpose of a project, but these worlds the software creates are pretty, and we don't want to mar them for no good reason. 2) In our server it was a rule that you had to ask for permission before helping someone with one of their projects. 3) In our server it was a rule that you had to ask for permission from ALL THE OTHER PLAYERS in our (admittedly small) server before starting a project. This kept new players from flooding other players creations, and gave the players the ability to veto dumb ideas like a big grey cube, or an electric phallus. lol. 4) Players who built sand towers to see into the distance, had to remove them to reduce clutter. 5) Any player that deleted anothers work would be banned immediately upon being reported. I of course gave more weight to the opinion of players who had been in the server building for a long time. Now, you may think that this system of banning immediately would be abused, but it never was.
Now, before I would start explaining all these rules I would tell the new player basically "welcome! Please stay on the platform until I explain the rules to you" and this was good because it weeded out a lot of spastic and disrespectful players. On this server, I was extremely Ban-Happy. I would ip ban (new) players for deleting the ground around them (after 1 warning), Being disrespectful while I explained the rules, or running off. I banned a lot of people! But because I was closely watching every new person that entered the server, I could, at the end of my rules rant explain to my new players that on this server they could really invest themselves because their creations had a very low chance of being deleted, and the results were amazing!
The disadvantage of this system, is that it ate ALL my time for about 6 hours whenever I opened a server. Once i left the keyboard for literally 5 minutes, and a griefer logged in and flooded a players beautiful subway he was building, but that was our only notable instance of real griefing. The advantage is that we really were able to basically eliminate griefing, and also because the other players had to approve the new projects we ended up with a beautiful cohesive world with a theme, that was not too cluttered and retained the natural beauty of the randomly generated worlds.
I just went through all the trouble of explaining this, for the following reason. I don't know if you guys think the server I just described is the sort of server you would like to play on. It was a little bit fascist, but I am telling you, the players who stayed on and built things over the course of hours really loved it, and appreciated what I was doing. I would love to see some more people adopt a similar system (with whatever amount of strictness you desire) and starting some similar servers where players can feel safe creating.
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Now my idea for a system to combat griefing (other than the above wall of text (Summary:Moderate like a mofo) is as follows. I don't know if it's very original, but I haven't heard of anything like it yet. My apologies if someone has suggested it before. It is as follows.
Assign all blocks an ID for whatever player built them. (randomly generated blocks have a separate ID)
Make the actions of building and deleting contingent upon mod approval.
When new players enter the server they have NO permissions. (unless the server is set to allow them)
The mod first gives the permission to add blocks. This only allows blockspam griefing, which is only annoying.
The mod can then add new permissions to each player dependant upon how long they have been in the server or whatever criteria they desire.
the ladder would basically go like this: Add blocks, Delete randomly generated blocks, then if needed for a project or collaboration or to undo griefing, Delete blocks made by (playerID).
A few things - All this could also be run through a voting system. It would be good to be able to set ID specific permissions so that if two people wanted to work together on a project, they could delete each others blocks. Also, it would be cool to set your own permissions to only delete blocks made by PlayerID. this would make it easy to delete a griefers blockspam.
Finally, it would be good if the moderator could see in a separate window or something the actions of all players. something like onecircles +S(stone) 144,286 etc. and if there were mod powers to undo all changes made by a specific player or delete all blocks made by a specific player.
That is all, tell me what you guys think! thanks for listening! :smile.gif:
Putting an ID on the block is best. Players can only delete their own blocks and blocks made by nature.